CEO Frans Muller told Reuters that Ahold Delhaize has reached “roughly half” of its target to grow revenue from businesses beyond grocery stores to 1 billion euros in 2025 by selling adverts on its supermarkets’ websites and monetizing customer data insights.
Grocers like Ahold Delhaize (AD.AS) are starting businesses to provide consumer goods companies online advertising, including the possibility for their brands to rank first in buyers’ searches or as “sponsored products” like Amazon (AMZN.O).
They’re also improving the data they sell to consumer goods businesses, which target shoppers with adverts.
Muller said Ahold Delhaize, which owns Stop & Shop in the U.S. and Albert Heijin in the Netherlands, utilizes advertising revenue to cut food costs when inflation lingers in Europe and the U.S.
“We will reinvest retail media revenue to ensure consumers can afford healthy and sustainable products,” Muller stated.
“We have to work very hard together, with retail and manufacturing, to keep costs down,” he added.
Muller wouldn’t say how much Ahold Delhaize makes when shoppers click on sponsored products or banner ads.
Peapod Digital Labs, Ahold Delhaize’s U.S. retail media business, plans to start a European agency focusing on brands not offered by the group’s grocery stores.
Sean Turner, Swiftly’s CTO, said retailers are trying to catch up with Amazon and Walmart.
Amazon’s fourth-quarter ad revenue was $11.6 billion, while Walmart has grown its Walmart Connect in-house advertising division since cutting ties with an external partner in 2019.
Turner said retailers must compete in retail media to survive. Others have realized they don’t have to make money selling items. “They can sell at loss,” he said.
